The Middle Movements

Abstract

Chapter 4 explores the different ways that Brahms organized each of his violin sonatas’ middle movement(s) so as to contribute to the overall narrative of that sonata as a whole. The G-major Sonata has a single middle movement. A letter that Brahms sent to Clara Schumann concerning that slow movement provides an opportunity to explore in more detail the relationship between this sonata and the death of Brahms’s godson at age 24. The A-major Sonata’s single middle movement combines a slow movement with a scherzo. The D-minor Sonata is the only one of Brahms’s violin sonatas to have two middle movements—a slow movement and an intermezzo.